Are Home Security Systems Good for Home Protection and Family Safety?

Home protection and family safety are the prime goals of a home security system. While this involves discovering burglary, a security system also identifies several other perils, including smoke, fire, CO gas poisoning, and water loss. Whether you self-monitor or pay for expert monitoring, you can understand if there’s uncertainty in your home, wherever you are. A professionally controlled security system will inform emergency services for you if a smoke or flood sensor is initiated, whether you are home, away, or asleep. It’s not worth seeing that you have to get the security company’s facilities to get expert monitoring of smoke and water sensors, which is not covered in standard security units and comes at an extra cost.

Many wireless home security systems operate with a smartphone app, a handy way to keep tabs on your family and pets. For example, the door sensors and movement sensors intended to warn you of someone lurking around your home can also warn you when your child gets home from school, or tell you whether your old mother got out of bed that morning.

What Are the Most Essential Home Security System Features?

A home security system is no good, if no one pays attention to it, which is why you should sincerely think of expert monitoring. While self-monitoring your home’s security system is the least costly option, it may not be the most suitable one for family protection. Someone could break in and steal something when you're far away from home, or your smoke alarms could go off when you have gone to work, and you wouldn't know about it.

Other major features for home protection have to do with the machine and how convenient it is to use. The core of a home security system is the base station, also known as a hub. This can be a touchscreen attached to a wall, a simple case you can put in a cabinet, or a machine with a combined keypad created to be kept out in the open. Whatever extra features it has, its principal purpose is to be the fundamental connection point for all the safety sensors that make up your system. Frequently, it also serves as an indoor alarm.

While you may be doubtful to install security cameras due to privacy interests, note that some cities need video verification of an alarm before they send emergency responders if there's no one on the home to validate the threat. With combined cameras for video surveillance, your alarm organization can view a clip of the situation and validate to the dispatcher that help is required.

One of the most valuable features of wireless home security systems is that you can locate them from the palm of your hand from anywhere. Almost all the security systems have a partner smartphone app that makes activating, deactivating, monitoring, and maintaining your home’s security system more comfortable than ever.

What Are Less Essential Home Security System Features?

With modern wireless devices, hiring a home security expert to install your security system is more costly unless you have a particularly big home or a complex system. Installing motion, door, and window sensors and joining a base station to your internet service is comparatively easy. If you want intelligent door locks and thermostats installed, hiring a professional may be a good idea, but for a basic security system, you can easily do it yourself.

When it comes to the intelligent home features touted by many security organizations, don't spend on something you won’t use. In big part, most home automation abilities baked into security systems – like turning the lights on before you get home – are more about convenience than home protection. They may not be worth investing in unless you know you will use them.

What Are the Privacy Concerns of Home Security Systems?

Security cameras can be a very beneficial component of a home security system. However, most work over Wi-Fi, which makes them more defenceless to hacking. Many other machines you might want to connect to your system also use Wi-Fi. Two of the most unprotected part of a security system are network or internet-connected security cameras and the Wi-Fi router itself, as they are mostly targeted by hackers. Note that it’s not the hardware that gets hacked, but rather the software, which then gives the hacker an entrance to the whole network. This is where the homeowner needs to be security-savvy. The most crucial step is modifying the default security settings on the machine itself, including the admin login data that is often publicly open and leveraged by hackers.

Does a Home Security System Increase Property Value?

There isn't much research data to recommend that a basic home security system could increase your property's worth, but setting up a smart home security system may. Having an alarm system with a sensor network and the experience to add smart home devices would be engaging to potential buyers, which is why many homebuilders are adding these types of systems as a base feature of new homes.

What Can a Home Security System Do Besides Prevent Burglary?

The sole purpose of a home security system was to protect your property, which meant you hoped you would never have to use it. This could make it hard to justify the expense. However, increasing interest in smart/connected homes has given home security systems a boost in capability. Up until a few years ago, security sensors simply triggered an alarm, but now those sensors tie into other things. For example, your security system can now tie into your smart lighting. Using your smart security system to run your smart home can bring significant advantages. “The key selling point for home security providers is that they can provide just about all of this smart home control and technology from a single interface and/or app, instead of consumers being forced to run multiple apps to control all these different systems.

An integrated smart home security system can do useful things like disarm your alarm system and turn the lights on when you enter your code into a connected door lock or lock all your doors, turn your lights off and lower your thermostat temperature at night when you arm the system. Of course, to do this you’ll need to invest in smart locks, lights, and thermostats in addition to security sensors.